


I Show Not Your Face

by formerlydf



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco, The Academy Is...
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-12
Updated: 2009-12-12
Packaged: 2018-04-13 17:31:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4530810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/formerlydf/pseuds/formerlydf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not awkward — mostly, Jon thinks, because he doesn't spend too much time thinking about it, and he doesn't think William does, either. It's what happens, when you tour. Not with everybody you meet, obviously, but it's just a generally known fact that the more time you spend with somebody, the greater your chances of sleeping with them while under the influence of some sort of alcohol.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Show Not Your Face

**Author's Note:**

> My [](http://drawn-to.livejournal.com/profile)[drawn_to](http://drawn-to.livejournal.com/) fic for the wonderful [](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/profile)[airgiodslv](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/), who unknowingly provided a lot of support for her own fic. Uh, sorry for lying to you for so long about not having you, Jen. And ten thousand ships worth of thanks to [](http://clarityhiding.livejournal.com/profile)[clarityhiding](http://clarityhiding.livejournal.com/) and [](http://hapakitsune.livejournal.com/profile)[hapakitsune](http://hapakitsune.livejournal.com/) for being so incredibly generous with their time, energy, advice, and patience. This fic wouldn't even be readable without them.

_one._

Jon wakes up, rolls over, and suddenly finds himself with a mouthful of hair.

It's not like this has never happened before. He's nineteen, after all, and he's traveling with a band that likes to party, which means occasionally his evenings will begin and middle with some drinking, and end with either sex or an impromptu sleepover with someone in the band who decides that Jon's bed is closer than his own.

He will admit, though, this is the first time both of those endings have been combined.

The hair is tugged out of his mouth as William stirs and turns over, blinking sleepy eyes up at Jon. "Huh," he says, which is fair. That's essentially how Jon is feeling right now, after all.

"Yeah," Jon replies, wincing a little. The inside of his mouth kind of tastes like a carpet. A slimy carpet. Other than that, though, he doesn't have any sort of hangover at all, which he's sure he'll appreciate a little bit later, when he's actually awake.

"Okay, then," William says, his words slurring into a yawn. Jon isn't the only one who has morning breath, apparently. "What time is it?"

Jon frowns, trying to remember where the hell he put his cellphone, before he notices that his watch somehow ended up tangled in the sheets between him and the wall. He squints at the planets revolving around the glass face. "Seven. I think." He's not really willing to trust his eyes just yet.

"Mmm," William hums, closing his eyes. "I don't know about you, but I'm going back to sleep." His eyes flutter shut again.

Leave it to William Beckett to speak in complete sentences when he's still mostly asleep. He has a point, though. Jon sighs and closes his eyes, one hand skimming up William's bare thigh to rest on his hip.

When he wakes up for the second time, William is gone. That's not entirely unexpected.

/

It's not awkward — mostly, Jon thinks, because he doesn't spend too much time thinking about it, and he doesn't think William does, either. It's what happens, when you tour. Not with everybody you meet, obviously, but it's just a generally known fact that the more time you spend with somebody, the greater your chances of sleeping with them while under the influence of some sort of alcohol. (It's never happened to Jon before, but that's just incidental. Isn't it?) And they weren't consuming just any alcohol last night; that was prime _zelyonoye vino_ , made from a recipe smuggled out of Russia before the _Sperre_ Wall collapsed. The Russians could get pretty intense about their national treasures, back in the eighties.

Good green wine will get you drunk off of one glass, depending on how big your glasses are. One shot, and the room starts to blur around the edges. Two, and you're lucky if the entire room doesn't flip upside down. Three, and anything you do is officially excused, because the inevitable hangover is already going to make you want to shoot yourself. There's no need to add "extreme embarrassment" to your list of suicide justifications.

(Which isn't to say that sleeping with William is embarrassing, because Jon willingly admits that William is an attractive guy even if they are and always will only be friends, but. Maybe "fear of mass amounts of teasing" would be a better way to put it, or — anyway.)

Jon had five, because Tom is an asshole, but weirdly enough, he feels fine. Mostly, in any case; the back of his skull is buzzing insistently, but at least he doesn't feel like somebody hit him with a brick the size of a house, which tends to be his usual reaction to _zelyonoye vino_. You'd think he would have learned to stop drinking it by this point, but clearly Jon is some sort of masochist.

Except for how, this morning, he doesn't have any sort of hangover at all. He gets up and dressed without any problem, other than a slight vertigo when he swings out of his bed and into the hallway. It's... really fucking strange, to be honest, but Jon really isn't going to probe too closely. He's too worried that reality will somehow catch up and slap him with a hangover twice as bad as usual.

William is already in the kitchen when Jon wanders in, poking absently at the stove like he's considering cooking. The coffee maker is already set up, delicious brown liquid sliding through spiraling rings of copper and glass, dripping into the bottomless pot.

"Is food about to come into existence?" Jon asks hopefully. He didn't realise until this moment just how _hungry_ he is. "Maybe?"

"I wish food would just come into existence," William sighs, tugging up his too-large pajama pants. They're pink and plaid; Jon can't help smiling. "Is there anything in the pantry?"

"I can check," Jon offers, opening the door and poking his head in. The pantry is mostly full of alcohol — or was, in any case, since they've been tearing through that pretty steadily for the past few weeks — but there's a fair amount of food on the shelves, in case there's no time to stop for food at some ridiculously unhealthy restaurant on the way. "How much cooking are you willing to do? Because there's some bacon, but there's also cereal and milk if you don't want to actually make anything."

"I notice that you didn't volunteer to help cook," William says wryly, but he sounds more amused than annoyed. "And bring out the bacon. Some bread, too. I drank about twice my weight in booze last night and I'm feeling a little..." He pauses, probably to think up the right word. "Liquidy."

"Bacon and bread it is," Jon agrees. And that's funny too, now that he thinks of it; William drank as much as he did, but they're still up earlier than anyone else on the bus. Maybe that batch of green wine was brewed oddly or something. Or maybe it's karma, the universe's revenge against the assholes who made them drink so much.

He grabs enough food for two — screw everyone else, they can make their own damn breakfast when they wake up — and tosses it to William, who sets a frying pan on the stove and catches both packages, one in each hand.

"I could cook," Jon says thoughtfully, leaning against the table and watching William light the stove with a flick of his wand. "But then breakfast would probably get set on fire and you would just have to do it anyway, so I figure this way we can at least spare ourselves the effort of cleaning out the kitchen."

"Truly, you're a master of forethought," William concedes, laying out strips of bacon on the frying pan and sending pieces of bread to hover in the air, browning themselves. "This means you have to make the coffee."

"When do I not make the coffee?" Jon asks rhetorically, already heading for the coffee maker to check out its progress. "I always make the coffee. I was sleeping in yesterday and Mike woke me up so I would make the coffee."

Not that he really minds, of course. He takes pride in his coffee skills. Besides, if they let Mike make the coffee, everyone might have to switch to — Merlin forbid — _tea_. Jon is not a tea person. If he's going to be consuming tiny pieces of leaves, he'd rather do it properly and just smoke a joint.

"I feel for you," William tells him solemnly, peering at the bacon slices and flipping them over. "I really do. Of course, I would probably feel more for you if you didn't complain every time someone else makes the coffee."

"It's not my fault you guys are incapable of making it so it actually tastes good," Jon retorts mildly, tapping his wand against the crystal funnel disappearing into the pot. It chimes softly, which is a good sign; he flicks a switch and watches the various pipes coil back into themselves, the coffee maker suddenly going from taking up most of the counter to being only the size of Jon's palm. He takes the pot and grabs two large mugs. "Skim milk, no sugar, right?"

"Got to keep my girlish figure," William agrees, serving himself a generous portion of bacon and smothering his toast in syrup. "You want syrup?"

"Hit me," Jon says, pouring a thin ribbon of milk into William's coffee and passing it to him.

William sets two food-covered plates down on the kitchen table and both of them sit down, getting to the incredibly serious business of eating.

/

_two._

Jon wakes up with his arm around a slender waist, his mouth pressed against a pale shoulder, his cheek resting on soft, familiar hair. His arm tightens almost automatically, pulling the sleep-pliant body closer, before he realises just _how_ familiar that hair is and draws back, slowly loosening his grasp on William.

He can feel a faint pounding at the back of his head — a preview of his inevitable hangover, probably. For now it isn't too bad, so he closes his eyes again and tries to go back to sleep without touching William — which turns out to be tricky, since for someone so skinny, William takes up a lot of room. It's hard to ignore the heat emanating from William's skin, flush against Jon's side.

Jon rolls onto his side, facing away from William, then thinks better of it and settles onto his stomach, his hands under his forehead. It's harder to move that way, harder to accidentally unbalance himself and tip backwards onto William.

He carefully makes sure his head is facing the wall instead of William and focuses on his breathing, trying to remember the feeling of being asleep. It's like floating, he thinks. Not flying, which is all starts and stops and wind in your hair, no matter whether you're on a broomstick or a carpet. Floating, though, floating Jon remembers from when he was eight and inevitably woke up a foot above his bed three nights out of five. His muscles relax, like all the tension has suddenly dropped out of them, and he's totally at the mercy of whatever currents of air might be swirling around him.

The bed doesn't move, but it's soft enough to feel similar, charmed feathers lifting him up like the sky. He manages it for a few minutes, the lines of his body soft and loose, but then William stirs next to him and he's suddenly in himself again, back in the ground and conscious of his own body.

He turns his head to look at William. He doesn't mean to; he can't help it.

William is on his stomach too, sprawled across the bed, one arm bent underneath his chest and the other flung out to the side opposite Jon, like he was sleeping on his side but shifted when Jon pulled away. His hair is spread out across the pillow; it falls to his shoulders, but Jon can still see through it, see the bruises — bite marks — on William's neck. There are red marks on his back until it disappears under the blanket.

William's forehead is pressed into the pillow, until he turns his head to the side and flutters his eyes open, his eyelashes casting faint shadows on his cheeks.

"Morning," he murmurs. "Again?"

"Morning," Jon responds, his voice low; he doesn't know who else is awake yet, and he'll have to face the wrath of anyone he wakes up. "Again. But too early to wake up."

"So does this mean I can't force you to make breakfast this time?" William asks, yawning, and _this time_ , and _again_ , and usually this sort of thing doesn't happen twice with the same person. _Once_ is random; _twice_ is... something. Jon doesn't know what's so special about William, but he hopes neither of them are going to point it out.

"I have a feeling that when I get up, the only breakfast I'm going to want will be hangover reliever," Jon replies honestly. He's pretty sure that the only reason the mild headache pulsing in his head hasn't intensified is because he's still a little drunk. "And coffee. That I don't have to make." He can already feel his eyelids slipping shut again, even if his body is still keyed up. The tip of William's nose is just a hair away from his own.

William looks at him for a moment. "Go back to sleep, lazy," he orders Jon softly. Jon blinks his eyes open for half a second, long enough to see a hint of a smile playing around the corner of William's mouth. Jon hears the blankets shift, and when he opens his eyes again, William is almost gone, just a flash of bare skin moving beyond the curtain.

/

Jon hates alcohol.

Jon hates alcohol, and the people who make alcohol, and the people who make him drink alcohol and are therefore to blame for Jon having the worst hangover of his life. Jon would totally be transferring his hangover to his asshole of a best friend right at this moment if he thought he could actually move, much less cast a spell.

Instead, he lets himself roll out of bed and onto the carpet, trying not to groan too piteously. He's naked, he realises after a blurry second; luckily, he has a pair of boxers hanging off the edge of his bed, so he just has to reach up and grope around for a second before they're firmly in hand and he can tug them on.

That achieved, he rolls onto his front, manages to maneuver himself onto his hands and knees, and begins the arduous process of standing up, one painful inch at a time. He feels like he got stepped on by a troll, and then someone wrapped up his brain in a wool blanket, stuck a bunch of Deadly Fireworks inside, and then lit them all at once. The colors that flash behind his eyes are pretty, but he's fairly sure there are portions of his brain he's never getting back.

In all honesty, this might be his fault. If he hadn't told Tom that he hadn't had a hangover after the five shots of _zelyonoye vino_ , the whole band wouldn't have heard about it, and then they wouldn't have dared him to try to beat the record, and then Jon wouldn't have a sudden craving to swallow a liberal dose of Numbwort. He figures that would either dull the pain or kill him; either option seems okay, right now.

When he stumbles into the kitchen, Sisky and William are already sitting there, talking lightly about something Jon can't muster up the brainpower to focus on. All that matters is that the bottomless coffee pot is sitting in the middle of the counter, and it's steaming. Everything else can wait.

"Mug," Jon mutters, and one blessedly levitates itself into his hands. Or, more likely, is swish-and-flicked into his hands, but hey, Jon has a mug. A mug means Jon can pour himself some coffee, which means that Jon can then _drink_ coffee. Small details like how he acquired the mug are not worth bothering with, because detailed thoughts are currently making his head hurt.

After he takes his first sip of coffee, he sees a small yellow bottle scoot across the counter towards him. "We're out of the pure hangover relief, but I found some SunnyUp," William tells him in a voice just low enough that it doesn't make Jon want to cover his ears. That's handy, because covering his ears would mean Jon would have to put down his mug, and it's hard enough to just release one hand so he can swallow down the SunnyUp.

It's got a weird aftertaste, sort of like eating dandelions, but at least it makes his head feel less fuzzy and the sunlight peeking around the cracks in the blinds that much less unwelcome. Unfortunately, the pounding in his head, doesn't stop. Jon drinks some more coffee and tries not to grimace too obviously.

Sisky looks up from his cereal and wrinkles his nose. "Man, you look like shit."

"At least it's not a regular occurrence," Jon shoots back blandly, more out of habit than anything else. His head hurts too much for him to actually expend effort thinking up comebacks. "With you, people have just stopped mentioning it."

"Oh, snap," William says, holding back a snicker.

"I express a little concern, and this is what I get," Sisky says, shaking his head. "I'm hurt."

"I'm sure you'll never recover," William sympathises solemnly, while Jon watches, amused. William's wearing the pink pajama pants again with a shirt that's too short for him. There's a bruise on his hip that, with very little imagination (but oh, what an image), could possibly be the shape of Jon's thumb. Jon ignores it. Well, he sort of ignores it.

"Seriously, though, you still look terrible," Sisky tells Jon, peering up at him. "Did that SunnyUp do anything? That stuff is shit, dude, my mom used to sneak it into my pumpkin juice in the morning so I wouldn't fall asleep in elementary school. It never worked."

"I'm sorry," William apologises, looking over at Jon. The hickeys on his neck are mostly hidden beneath some sort of cover-up spell; Jon can only see the faint remnants because he knows where to look. "It was all we had left. We'll have to stop by the next apothecary we find."

That's probably a good idea. They do go through a shitload of hangover medicine. "Not your fault. I just have a headache," Jon says, taking another sip of coffee. A killer headache, complete with faint ringing in his ears, nausea and an intense desire to shut himself in a dark, sound-proofed room for approximately a week; this may go down as the worst hangover since the time he thought mixing potions with booze would be a good idea. (For the record, it really, really wasn't.)

"Can I try?" Sisky pleads. "I've been working on my healing spells. Mom says I need to master at least three of those and then a bunch of others before she lets me go on tour again."

"Knock yourself out," Jon tells him, closing his eyes and gripping his mug protectively. He's willing to be a guinea pig if it means this migraine will let up a little. How is William not dead? Sisky only had two beers, but William had to match Jon shot for shot, as per the rules of the dare. Does he just have some ridiculous metabolism hidden inside that stick-thin body? Maybe he made some sort of deal with Death. Screw hallows; all-powerful wands and resurrection stones aren't nearly as useful as a zero-hangover guarantee would be. Jon wonders if he can make a bargain with Death, too. What does he have that he could trade?

" _Sano_!" Sisky shouts, because he still can't quite shake the innate belief that the louder you shout a spell, the more likely it is to work. Nothing happens. Jon shakes his head, and Sisky repeats, " _Sano_!"

Still nothing. Fuck, Jon was really hoping that would work.

"Try _Heafodece Incephalalgia_ ," William suggests, and it's just obscure enough that Jon opens his eyes simply to squint at William. Well, that and take a swig of his coffee. William, he notices, is also sipping from an oversized mug. Sisky is just frowning at his wand like he can't understand why it won't actually do what he wants.

Honestly, Jon thinks that if anyone could understand that, then the wizarding world and the whole concept of magic in general would make a lot more sense.

"Heafo what?" Sisky demands, looking away from his wand to stare quizzically at William. "Where the hell do you find these things?"

William shrugs, looking a little uncomfortable. "Courtney bought me a book of basic medical spells the summer when — when I graduated from Bathory." When he got kicked out of the house because he wanted to be in a band instead of going to wizarding university, Jon mentally translates. "They worked alright when I tried them, so they might work even better for you. There was a whole section just on different kinds of aches. Hea-fo-de-ce in-ce-phal-al-gi-a, and slash with your wand."

"Hayfodechi insephalalgia," Sisky tries, with a halfway decent slash of his wand. Jon can't hear that much of a difference between William's intonation and Sisky's, but something must be wrong, because nothing happens. This time it's William who shakes his head.

"Emphasise the vowels less, and slash a little more," William suggests, rolling his wand between his fingers. "More like... Here, I can show you." He raises his wand and brings it down in a sharp diagonal, saying, " _Heafodece incephalalgia_!"

Jon blinks and only just manages to keep his mug from slipping out of his surprised fingers, because the headache suddenly diminishes to a bearable level, just a muted thudding at the back of his skull. The nausea is gone, and he finds himself appreciating the sunlight instead of feeling like it's gouging his eyes out. "That's — perfect, actually. Thanks, Bill."

William looks a little surprised, too, and so does Sisky, who slowly puts his wand down. The thing is that Jon doesn't think any of them expected the charm to actually work quite so well. William knows a lot about different types of magic and he's memorised about a thousand obscure spells, but he's never been that great of a practicing wizard. He always managed, and he got the highest grades in pure theory, but he was only ever average when it came to execution, no matter how hard he tried.

Sisky opens his mouth to say something, but Jon never finds out what it is, because just at that moment, Mike walks in. "Is that coffee?" he demands, making a beeline for the bottomless pot, but not before taking a moment to smirk at Jon — or more precisely, Jon's back. "Nice scratch marks, Walker."

Jon tries to hide his sudden flush by taking another gulp of coffee.

/

"Hey," Jon says later that afternoon, wandering into the upstairs lounge — fully clothed, so there shouldn't be any more comments. Tom is there already, sitting on a couch absently flicking through a magazine. Butcher is sitting in a corner with all his art supplies spread around him, carefully adding streaks of red to the hair of a painted girl who keeps on shyly batting her eyelashes at him. Mike is on the couch across from Tom, his head surrounded by the tell-tale turquoise glimmer of a Sphere. His eyes are closed and he's nodding his head, probably to the bass line of whatever he's listening to.

Jon's still trying to figure out a way to transport Muggle music into his own Sphere. One day, he thinks. For now he just has to content himself with the battered CD player he's had to rescue from Sisky's curious clutches more than once.

"Jonny!" Tom says, sounding delighted. Thanks to William, Jon no longer feels like his head is trapped in a vise, but he still doesn't think he needs that kind of enthusiasm at the moment.

"Screw you," he gripes, plopping down on the sofa next to Tom. He glances out the window, watching as clouds and the tops of the tallest trees skim by. "I'm never drinking with you again."

"Aww," Tom complains, but he's grinning. "Wimp."

"My liver disagrees," Jon informs him. "And I notice _you_ didn't drink six shots of green wine last night."

"Well, yeah," Tom responds as Sisky comes up the stairs, balancing a huge platter of sandwiches that Jon suspects is not going to be shared. "I'm not insane, are you kidding me?"

Jon shoves him, which of course means Tom has to retaliate, and by the time they're finished scuffling, Butcher has finished the girl's hair and moved onto her robes — she's blushing a furious shade of pink that Jon doesn't think is anywhere on Butcher's palate — and Sisky has finished approximately half of his sandwiches.

"Look, Tom, he takes after you," Jon teases, laughing. "Hungry like a wolf."

"Fuck you, dicksmack," Tom says without any heat, holding back a snicker of his own. "That's like an appetizer." It's true; Jon saw the way Tom always attacked the buffets at Bathory, when the moon was waxing closer to full. He'd had to snatch his food off the platter before Tom got within a foot of it, or suddenly — there the platter was, gleaming bronze and, more importantly, gleaming _emptily_.

"Fuck you all," Sisky interjects, as haughtily as someone with their mouth full of ham and cheese can, and slaps at the long-fingered hand which sneakily reaches over his shoulder. "And fuck you the most, Beckett."

Sisky's slapping proves ineffectual; William manages to grab a sandwich and dart away, throwing himself down next to Mike. Mike slants him an unimpressed look, digging in a pocket for his Scepter and turning the Sphere off.

"Are you stealing Siska's food again?" Mike asks, like he already knows the answer. He probably does.

"No," William lies unrepentantly, taking a bite of his pilfered sandwich. He finishes chewing and swallowing before adding, "I have a right to any foodstuffs Adam may have about him. We established this back when Adam was a mere firstie. It isn't my fault he's forgotten." He takes another delicate bite.

"I remember _you_ established that after Manny Johansan hexed my mouth shut," Sisky says, shoving a last corner of a messily-constructed sandwich into his mouth, catching a few stray bits of lettuce that fall out, and tossing them onto the table. Mike grabs his wand and waves them into a trashcan, rolling his eyes.

"I always knew you were a sneaky bastard," Tom reflects, smiling slightly.

William shrugs. "You can't blame me for taking advantage of opportunity." His tongue darts out to lick a few crumbs off his lips, and William smiles when he catches Jon's eyes.

"Oh yeah?" Jon finds himself asking, his eyebrows raised. "I think it depends on the opportunity, doesn't it?"

Still smiling, William ducks his head, looking up at Jon through a wave of soft brown hair. "Are you insinuating something, Mr. Walker?"

"You tell me," Jon responds, and Tom is looking at him strangely, and. Huh. He hadn't thought he'd intended his original comment to sound so... like this. "I mean, I wouldn't want to think we couldn't trust you."

"Don't worry," William assures him. He lifts his head up again, and Jon glances again at the faint smudges on his neck where the hickeys are hidden. "Secretly, I'm a gentleman."

"Yeah, it was so gentlemanly when you declared you had a right to my food when I couldn't even argue," Sisky snorts, and Jon looks away from William and out the window, feeling as if he's been startled out of a daze. A grey owl flies past and hoots through the window at them before returning to her path.

"Says the kid who stole the last donut from my hand," Mike snorts, and everyone laughs, even Sisky. Even Butcher, who carefully holds his brush far away from his canvas to keep the paint from dripping onto his picture.

Jon relaxes into the couch and tries not to pay attention to the feel of his shirt rasping against the scratches on his back.

/

_three._

Jon wakes up with his face pressed against William's collarbone, and the fact that he immediately recognises it as William's collarbone could be dangerous, he thinks.

He edges backwards just slightly, one hand still resting lightly on William's side, the other splayed across his shoulder. He can't move much farther because William's right arm is draped over Jon, and Jon's afraid that if he jostles it too much William will wake up.

He falls asleep again in the middle of wondering how slowly he would have to move to slip away.

This time when he wakes up, William is a foot away, looking at him through half-open eyes, one hand tucked under his cheek, half-hidden by his hair. Jon's hands are pressed against the mattress, empty and cold. He reclaims them, tucking them under the blanket he hitches up to cover his chest.

"I know," Jon begins, and it comes out in a croak. He clears his throat and tries again. Luckily, the distance between them is enough that he doesn't have to worry too much about inflicting his morning breath on William. "I know I stuck to beer last night." He's been sticking to (mostly) beer since the last time he woke up to William's skin; he doesn't need anymore green wine hangovers.

"Okay," William says slowly, like he's not entirely sure where Jon is going with this. William isn't at his best in the mornings, especially given the late night they had last night. "And?"

"And you didn't have any _vino_ last night." Jon pauses a moment to let this sink in, but William just raises an eyebrow. "So when we go out there, everybody else is going to have full permission to mock us all they want."

He thinks it might mean something that they've done this three times. Maybe, possibly. Jon hasn't slept with anyone else in the band three times. Jon hasn't slept with anyone else in the band _once_ , and he's gotten drunk with Tom more times than he can count.

He doesn't have to mention that, though, he thinks. They're all adults here; sex is just something that happens, isn't it? When you find someone attractive, and they find you attractive, and you're just drunk enough that you forget any reasons why you shouldn't. Like that —

Well, there are reasons. Probably. Jon's sure he'll be able to list them later, when he's more awake.

William grimaces. "But if we don't leave they're just going to make fun of us even more," he points out, which is completely true and the only reason Jon hasn't already suggested that they just go back to sleep until the bus lurches to a halt.

He takes a sighing moment to soak in the feel of the incredibly comfortable mattress, the warmth of the pillow, the admittedly appealing sight of William in front of him, before he pushes himself up and begins feeling around for a pair of boxers. Instead, he comes up with a pair of jeans, which look like they were designed for twigs — really, really long twigs — and therefore must be William's jeans, which means Jon has no chance in hell of fitting into them. Ryan Ross probably could, but Jon feels sort of strange about the idea of Ryan wearing William's clothes.

Okay, then. He reaches under the bed and rifles through his clothes by feel until his fingers isolate a pair of worn-out sweats by touch. He drags them on with one hand, using the other to brush flakes of dried come off his stomach. "I'll go first," he offers, "see if I can draw off some of the teasing."

"You're a gentleman and a martyr," William says earnestly, looking up with wide eyes. His hair is fanned out around him on the pillow.

Jon smiles at him and adds, "Of course, if you wanted to do anything in return, I wouldn't mind if my sheets mysteriously got cleaned somehow." It's at least a week and a half until they're going to be able to do any proper washing spells, and William swears that some of the few charms he's mastered are the minor cleaning spells.

"Mmm." William stretches, his back arching, and the blanket slips farther down his hips. "Your sheets will be as good as new. As soon as I find my wand."

"It's in the holder," Jon says immediately, because he remembers them laughing and fumbling with their wands last night, slotting them in side by side. He reaches over William to grab it, brushes a kiss over William's forehead, and climbs out of the bed, only realising the progression of events after he's already headed for the bathroom to brush his teeth.

A kiss on the forehead. Huh. That... happened.

Okay. Jon tries to ignore the memory of William's skin under his lips and focusing on squeezing out the toothpaste.

/

It's still not — awkward, exactly. They get teased, obviously, they get teased pretty much every second of every day except when The Academy is on stage. Even when they're setting up, dragging the stage out from the lowest level of the bus and unfolding it, increasing the security precautions, making the arcs of acoustics visible so they know where the set the resonators and amplifiers, tuning the various instruments — by hand, because it never sounds as good when you do it by magic — even then, pretty much everyone on the entire tour manages to find time to tease Jon and William.

They get the whole range of comments, from suggestive to amused to envious to curious to downright _dirty_. There are a lot of mentions of William's flexibility, some demands as to whether Jon still wears flip-flops even in bed — and that one is from a tech whom Jon has actually slept with; he can't decide if she couldn't resist making the joke or if she just can't remember — and a whole group of people individually propose that Jon and William just take the stage for the night and give everyone a different kind of show. Jon is pretty sure they're joking.

One comment they don't get, though, is anything along the lines of "third time's the charm," for which Jon is exceedingly glad. Once, even twice, okay, but thrice is beginning to make this seem like some sort of pattern. Three is an important number.

Jon doesn't mind the teasing, really. It would be weirder if they _hadn't_ been teased. He still makes fun of Tom for the time he thought going surfing on top of the bus — the bus that's, oh, forty feet high, not counting the wheels — would be a great idea. (For the record: it was an even worse idea than mixing potions and booze.) As it is, he and William mostly just roll their eyes and laugh.

So that's actually not the awkward part. That comes in when — okay. Like that one time Tom says, shaking his head sadly, "William, I'm so sorry. Do we need to take you to the doctor to get you checked for bad taste? Because I'm a little worried about how severe your symptoms are."

"If Bill's symptoms are severe, then Jon's are probably fatal," Sisky tells him, laughing. William flicks the side of his head with a forefinger.

"No, you guys, seriously," Mike interjects, with an expression like William at his most earnest. "We should all just be glad that the ugly kids are picking each other so that we hot people don't have to sleep with them."

Sisky cheers, and Butcher snorts, amused. "Man," Jon says, grinning at William. "I knew they were jealous, but I didn't know they were _this_ jealous."

William glances around. "No, I understand," he says sympathetically. "I mean, if you looked like that, wouldn't you be bitter that you weren't as outrageously attractive as the two of us?"

"Obviously," Jon says, nodding and trying to look serious. It's difficult; he keeps looking at William and wanting to laugh, out of sheer... something. "It's a good thing we don't have to worry about that, being as handsome as we are."

Jon doesn't laugh first; William does, closing his eyes and tipping his head back slightly, and _that's_ where the problem comes in, because Jon can't help but look at his neck and remember kissing down it, remember the way William shivered when Jon bit down right at the junction of shoulder and neck.

So that's the awkward part. It comes in flashes throughout the day, random times and actions setting off Jon's mind, like some strange and impenetrable spell. William smiles and Jon remembers the way his mouth looked bruised and swollen after they stopped kissing to break for air. William glances up and Jon remembers the way he'd looked up through his lashes while blowing Jon; William looks down and Jon remembers how his eyes glazed over when Jon returned the favor. William's shirt rides up and Jon remembers running his hands all over William's skin. William hums quietly to himself and Jon flashes back to the noises he made, the ones that made Jon glad they'd remembered to _Muffliato_. William brushes his hair back and all Jon can see is the way sweat darkens his hairline, gleaming against his skin. It's gotten to the point where William flips a page in his book and Jon starts thinking of how he looks naked.

And what's worse is that the memories are layered, most of them in three sets. Three tastes of William's mouth, three views of the way William arches his back when he comes, three everything.

It's incredibly distracting. Jon's seriously been considering self-Obliviation; the only issue is that he's not entirely sure he actually _wants_ to forget. It's... problematic.

"What's that I smell?" Tom wonders sarcastically, taking an over-dramatic sniff. "Smells like bull —"

He starts coughing so violently it seems like he's trying to hack up his lungs. "Woah," Jon says concernedly, rushing to Tom's side. He's a little terrified; he knows Tom's sense of smell is a little more sensitive than most people's, especially around the full moon, but he'd gone through the bus and made sure they'd gotten rid of anything that Tom was susceptible to. No too-strong cologne, no smelly cheese, and for Merlin's sake no silver — what could Jon have missed? "Are you okay?"

Tom shakes his head, wheezing, then stops mid-nod and changes it to a nod. "What the hell, you two?" he demands, shoving Jon away. Jon doesn't take offense; Tom never likes needing help. "Your pheromones are fucking _spicy_."

William frowns perplexedly at Jon, who just shrugs helplessly. "Maybe you ate something that's fucking with your sense of smell?" he suggests, and Tom shrugs. It's not as if anything like this has ever happened before; it's as good a theory as anything.

"Man, I told you that burrito was a bad idea," Sisky says sagely, and that's enough to take the conversation in an entirely different direction.

Jon manages to keep from thinking about William naked for an entire three hours, and by that point he's alone in his room anyway, so it doesn't matter.

/

They've got bigger things to worry about than William and Jon having sex for the third time or Jon's inability to stop picturing William naked, anyway. Mostly they have to worry about the next album.

Technically, this isn't Jon's concern, since he's not actually in the band; he's not a part of the writing process at all. He does, however, happen to be the unofficial Tom wrangler, as the only person in the world who can crack a, "Is it that time of the month?" joke without getting his head bitten off.

Tom's usually pretty relaxed; as long as he has beer, friends, family, and the occasional fuck, he doesn't get himself worked up about too much else. There are a few exceptions, though. Jon's learned that there are always a few exceptions, no matter what. Wave silver in his direction, and Tom will flip out; give him shit for being a werewolf, and he will take you down; provoke him into fight, and eventually, he'll give you one.

Songwriting is weird when you don't know your cowriters' styles, when you don't know how to slide in and out of each others' worst habits to create kicking music, and Tom and Butcher weren't around for the writing of the first album. Playing together is different than creating together.

Whenever Tom and Jon have written songs together, it's always been a pretty organic process, just the two of them kicking back and fiddling around until they got it down. With William and Mike, however, it's much more of a push-pull process, which results in some fucking great songs, but is kind of stressful when you factor Tom into it. It's harder for him to let the pushing and pulling roll off his back, especially around the full moon.

Things are... stressful. To say the least.

"It's something about the moon," Jon explains to William one day, the two of them each leaning against an arm of the purple couch. "The fuller it gets, the more the wolf starts coming out."

He almost feels a little guilty, spending so much time with William when there's so much shit going on in the band right now. Tom always presses his lips together tightly when he sees William and Jon sitting together, talking. It's always been them against the world, especially the parts of the world that are against one of _them_. Jon might have gone to school with William, Mike, Siska, and the Butcher as well, but compared to the history he has with Tom, it's like he's only just met the four of them.

But, on the other hand, it's not like William is really _against_ Tom, is he? And wouldn't it make band relations even more awkward if Jon suddenly stopped talking to William, just as he's beginning to discover just how much he actually enjoys it?

"And the wolf gets cranky," William extrapolates, twisting and shifting down slightly so he can drape his long legs over the back of the couch.

"Tom's an alpha," Jon explains, hoping he won't have to share the story of how he found _that_ one out. William looks faintly curious — unsurprising; William has what could almost be described as a fetish for learning new things — but Jon doesn't think he's going to press, for now. "He has a hard time not being dominant."

"Really," William says, his eyes fixed on Jon. "How does that work with you guys? Do you submit all the time?"

"Once in a while," Jon replies, letting his feet edge a little farther down the couch, closer to William's warmth and only incidentally closer to William's ass. "I wouldn't describe myself as a naturally submissive person." And that, oh — that came out with an edge he's pretty sure he never intended, something low and husky, and the image of William tied to his headboard might be a good one, but this is definitely not a road they really need to be going down right now, conversationally speaking. Jon clears his throat. "You know, never a good idea to get a wolf angry."

It's a good diversion. William glances away, flicking his gaze out the window, and Jon suddenly feels stupidly, ruefully bereft. "Like we've been doing, you mean." William sounds wry, and Jon isn't entirely sure what to say. He can't read anything in William's face.

"I —" Jon pauses for a moment, considering phrasing. "It's not like you've been doing it purposefully," he ventures cautiously, which is true enough. He would never work with anybody who purposefully drove his best friend crazy.

William laughs hollowly, rubbing a hand over his eyes. "We're not actually complete assholes," he says, and he sounds some combination of painfully young and regretfully old. It suits William, Jon thinks; he seems to perpetually find new and fascinating ways to combine sincerity and cynicism.

Jon doesn't know what he himself does. Blunders along, he's pretty sure, trying to find the right answers, the right things to say to calm everyone down. He was always the mediator, back at Bathory, long before anyone other than him knew Tom's secret. But you know, someone has to try to smooth out all the rough edges.

Speaking of which, he should make sure the bus basement — specially installed, which hadn't raised as many suspicions as Jon had worried it would; apparently Gabe Saporta insists on having a basement in his buses, to house his potions lab — is set up properly for the full moon. He's not sure any of them bothered to clean it out, but that's okay; that's what Jon is here for.

"Jon," William says, watching him. His gaze is less charged than before, but it's still fixed unwaveringly on Jon. Jon glances at William, who continues, "I'm sorry. I know this must be shitty for you." He brings his feet down so they trap Jon's feet, one on either side.

Jon quirks a smile, wiggling his toes slightly. "I'm just saying, the album had better be damn good."

William laughs at that, his grin breaking out wide and surprised on his face, and Jon just drinks it in for a moment, until Sisky comes skidding up the stairs. "Hey," he pants, resting his hands on his knees as he tries to catch his breath. "Mike's back, he says he's got a new idea for the broomstick song?"

William stretches, leaning back over the arm of the couch and bending almost to the ground. "Let me guess. He wants to work on it right now?" He straightens back up and shakes his head, mock-disappointed, before brushing his hair out of his eyes. "Young people have no patience nowadays."

"Yeah, you're such a geezer," Jon snorts, hitting William's instep with the side of his foot. In a second, William's foot is resting firmly on top of Jon's.

"I can't help that I'm more mature than the rest of you younguns," William sniffs, biting his lip to hold back a smile.

Sisky glances curiously at their feet. Jon doesn't register it for a second, but as soon as he does — seriously, what _is_ going on with their feet? The last person whose feet Jon played with was Cassie — he turns sideways, sitting properly on the couch. There's a brief, awkward pause before he thinks to stand hurriedly and volunteer, "I can grab Tom, if you want. I think he said he was going to hang out with Hellogoodbye today."

"Yeah," William says, moving his feet together to hide the empty space between them. He rubs the back of his neck and adds, "That sounds good."

"Right. Okay," Jon responds, and after one last, hesitant second, he heads for the stairs and the back exit. He doesn't have to physically go find Tom, he could just mirror him, but it's not such a chore. Anyway, it's on his way. He's been spending a lot of time with the Panic boys these days, once the Academy really started working on songs. It's easier for everyone if he's not sitting in the lounge pretending not to listen to the arguing coming from the top level.

/

The exits at the back of all the buses lead to the entrance at the front of another, making a weird sort of circular corridor that can be annoying to traverse, depending on what's going on in whatever bus you're passing through. Unfortunately, it doesn't work the other way around — if you step out the front door, you're just going to end up a smear on the side of the road — so if the bus you want is ahead of you, you have to go through all of the others to reach it.

Hellogoodbye is two buses away, and Panic is one after that. Of course, the Panic boys don't exactly have a bus, but Jon thinks what they do have is even better. Only legal because nobody's thought to outlaw it yet, of course, but who wouldn't want a walking house?

Ryan gets a little tetchy whenever anyone mentions that, but Spencer told Jon not to take it personally; the house belonged to Ryan's dad, who is apparently a touchy subject all around.

"Jon!" Brendon exclaims when Jon walks in. Jon automatically braces himself for the expected tackle — after so many weeks of tour, Brendon has him trained to his specifications — but when he looks over, Brendon's engrossed in playing some sort of game with Ryan. It's like nothing Jon has ever seen before; each of them is using their wand to compel a thumb-sized, human-shaped, amazingly detailed illusion forward, over a pit full of writhing, leaping snakes; between darting, sharp-toothed, sharp-winged birds; past walls that shoot out spurts of fire.

Actually, it is like something Jon has seen before. He was a huge Indiana Jones fan when he was a kid — although admittedly, Indy never had to cross a floor that looks like a piano and apparently has to be played properly for the stones to remain in place. Brendon gets dumped in a dungeon full of living mud the first time he tries to cross, and has to fight his way out while Ryan, who took a different route, smirks at him. Ryan reaches the piano floor and figures out the trick, playing an E major scale, before Brendon's figurine has managed to do more than sputter.

Brendon eventually struggles his way out of the mud and proceeds to use his illusion to play a concerto. Ryan scowls. "Show off."

"I can't help it that I'm more awesome than you are," Brendon exults, accidentally prodding his figure in his excitement. The illusion turns around and slaps at his wand, sticking his tongue out.

"Guys, enough, okay?" Spencer says, rolling his eyes and beckoning Jon over to the couch. Jon goes willingly, settling down next to Spencer, who explains, "We ordered it a few days ago, and it just arrived."

"What is it?" Jon asks, fascinated.

Brendon flicks his illusion into temporary non-existence, hurrying over and squeezing between Jon and Spencer. "The Enchanted Castle!" he exclaims. "It's one of the new Weasley games. The farther you get into the castle, the harder it gets. There are ghosts who could be evil or could be good, there are evil curses, and I heard there's even a charm-web, _really_ far in. That's if you're, like, brilliant. I might ask Bill to help me, he's really smart."

"Yeah," Jon says, smiling without meaning to. Why not, though? It's true, after all. "He is."

"The music theme is an add-on," Ryan explains, dropping down to Spencer's other side. "They have a couple of those."

Jon hums thoughtfully. "It sounds kind of like a video game." At Bathory Academy, he'd always played wizarding games, obviously, but when he was home he pretty much went fully Muggle. It was too weird, doing magic when his parents couldn't. Magical games do have a few advantages, though; with video games, you don't have the option to click on a modified Sphere and actually see the game all around you.

"A what?" Ryan demands, staring blankly at Jon.

Spencer elbows him. "You remember. The thing with the controllers and the pictures?" Spencer and Jon share a commiserating look. Spencer isn't Muggleborn, but his dad is, and Spencer grew up with all sorts of Muggle things — like video games. Ryan seems to have spent pretty much all his time with the Smiths, but he still blanks on the names of most everything.

"Oh, right!" Ryan says, nodding. He's just wearing old pajamas, Jon notices, but his hair has been carefully done and he's wearing intricately-applied eyeliner. Ryan is nothing if not a study in contradictions — like William, in a way. "That was weird. This has so many less wires."

"Well, I wasn't the one who insisted on playing Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy pretty much every day when we were fourteen," Spencer replies wryly. Jon thinks he can picture that in his head — Ryan trying to use his wand to move his characters, and Spencer laughing at him as it failed repeatedly, then explaining again how to use the controllers.

Spencer and Ryan begin to bicker comfortably, familiarly, like Jon does with Tom; Jon tunes them out when Brendon pokes him in the side. "Jon. Jon," Brendon says, lifting his legs up and dropping them on Jon's lap.

"What?" Jon asks, letting one hand curl around Brendon's calf. He's never met a group of people as into cuddling as the Panic boys, and that's saying a lot, considering the kids he went to school with.

"Is your band making beautiful music together right now?" Brendon asks, looking up at Jon. Dimly, Jon hears Ryan ask something about Spencer's mom and pie.

"Hopefully," Jon answers, not mentioning that they're not precisely his band, except inasmuch as he sets up the instruments for them. Brendon would just wave a hand and ignore it. And anyway, Jon sort of likes the sound of it. "That's the idea."

"Are you okay?" Brendon wonders, more quietly this time as he rests his head against Jon's chest. Jon lets his cheek rest on Brendon's hair for the briefest of moments. "I hate it when people argue."

And that's true; Jon doesn't have any more of a clue what went on in Brendon's family any more than he really knows what's up with Ryan's dad, but he's seen Brendon when people around him are arguing. It's never pretty, especially when Ryan is arguing with Brent. Speaking of —

"Where's your fourth?" he asks, and he notices Spencer and Ryan stop quibbling and start listening.

"He's going to catch up when we stop later," Brendon explains, his head still ducked. "He's been to the stop before, he said he wouldn't have a problem Apparating."

It is obnoxious, sometimes, that the buses are warded against Apparation, among other things. Jon gets it, though; he's seen how crazy some fans can get. There was a girl a few shows back who he's pretty sure actually tried to break into the Academy bus, but ended up bright purple and covered in tufts of orange hair that spelled out "CREEPER" on her arms. Which is funny, because the standard bus wards simply throw up a polite barrier that keeps unauthorised visitors ten to thirty feet away. That was rather... personalised.

The spell was brilliant and complex enough that Jon would suspect William of having found it and someone else — Pete, maybe, or Mike — of having put it into action, but it seems a little cruel for William. Then again, it was fairly easy to remove, and maybe William's gotten freaked out by the way that their entire audience seems to have been magnetically attracted to him this tour.

"He'll be back soon," Spencer says, more like he's trying to reassure Ryan and Brendon than to inform Jon. "We're only an hour away."

"We know," Ryan responds, sounding slightly snappish. Jon regrets bringing it up, now; things shouldn't be as tense in the Panic house as they've been getting on the Academy bus. He wouldn't wish that on them. "Nobody was worried."

"Of course not," Jon says easily, smiling at Ryan. His fingertips have memorised the feel of the strings of Brent's bass by now. He wonders if they've considered putting some kind of tracking spell on Brent to find out where he is when he forgets to turn up for sound check. "I was just wondering if we were going to have odd numbers for Gauntlet, but I guess not."

Taking the offered distraction, Brendon sits up straight, only narrowly avoiding crashing the top of his head into Jon's chin. "You brought the cards?" he demands, reaching out his hand expectantly.

"What do you take me for?" Jon scoffs, smiling. He's glad they like the game so much, even if he has no idea how the three of them have never played it before. At Bathory it was almost inescapable; you took a walk, and you stumbled across someone playing it, or someone with singed eyebrows who had clearly just lost. Mike was always really good at it, Jon remembers, even if he didn't know Mike quite as well back then. Fuck, Mike's still good at it. William is better, but William got disqualified from all games years ago by dint of having too-good reflexes."Do you guys still have some bananas left?"

"We have an eggplant," Ryan offers. Jon tries not to laugh. All the buses have pantries stocked full of cereal, chips and beer. Here, there's an eggplant. "Will that work?"

"If it's ripe, yeah," Jon says after a moment of thought. Ryan runs to grab it, and Jon flashes Spencer a smile. Spencer returns it immediately, looking a little relieved. Jon knows _exactly_ how he feels.

/

_four._

Jon wakes up with a gasp, his heart pounding. He feels — it feels like the last time he went flying on his old Blue Streak, without knowing that one of his brothers had accidentally flown it into a tree the day before. The broom had looked fine, but when he'd flown high enough that he was eye level with the chimney, it gave a shudder, a jolt, and then had just... dropped. Jon hadn't even been able to shout. Luckily, twenty seconds later the broom had regained its magic, and Jon had carefully steered it to the ground. He asked his parents for a new broom for Yule that year.

He feels like he did when the broom started flying again, all that downward momentum broken off unexpectedly. It had felt, for a moment, like his heart had still been falling while the rest of him soared upward.

It's only after he calms down, his breathing slowing, that he notices William lying beside him on the bed, his back moving up and down with his own deep breaths. Without thinking, Jon places a hand on William's bare shoulder-blade, lightly stroking up and down, letting his breathing slow even further to match William's.

He thinks about last night. He was drunk, he knows. He's always been drunk, all four times he's slept with William, which makes it seem like he only finds William attractive when he's drunk. That's definitely not true — obviously, or Jon wouldn't be spending approximately every other second thanking the universe that Legilimency is practically illegal, and that nobody on tour is any good at it anyway — but, you know, it could seem that way.

Or it could seem like Jon and William just lose their inhibitions when they're drunk, which might be closer to the truth, in its own way. It's almost like there's this constant buzzing at the back of Jon's head, something summoning him towards William all the time. Usually, though, he's able to remind himself that hey, he has stuff to do. He has a stage to set up, he has Tom to wrangle, he has pranks to pull on Sisky, he has Panic to chill with, he has to get out of the way while the Academy tries to write. There are always other people around.

When he's drunk, though, it's like that disappears. Jon remembers seeing William last night after a significant amount of firewhiskey. The room blurred suddenly; the only thing in sharp focus was William, and Jon needed to go to him immediately. That was important, Jon remembers.

It's all a little fuzzy, honestly, but that was _important_. And holy crap, he's petting William Beckett.

Jon pulls his hand away slowly, but William hardly moves, just nuzzles his face a little farther into the pillow. Their feet are tangled together, Jon notices now.

He's — This is — Well.

Jon can't stop a helpless little smile from stealing over his lips as he looks down at William. He doesn't know what this is, honestly, and it's not like they've ever talked about it seriously. He smiles anyway, completely baffled and a little worried by how much he wants this — whatever this happens to be — but he can't help feeling oddly, perfectly happy.

He brushes his fingers lightly over William's hair, carefully pulls his feet away, and heads for the shower, humming under his breath. It's going to be a good day.

/

He feels great for the rest of tour, all four days of it, and then he goes to Chicago and has no idea what the hell to do with himself. He felt like this, sort of, when he graduated from Bathory, like everything he'd been doing for the past few years had been leading up to something _big_ and then it disappeared just when he was about to find out what the hell it was.

He'd spent a while just fucking around, writing songs with Tom and never doing anything with them, toying with the idea of going to university without ever looking at any applications. He ended up taking his cameras and a broom and just flying, going to places he can't recognise by map or name or aerial view. He could make a timeline of pictures, magical and Muggle, prints he sold and ones he kept to himself, the artist described in leaves and night skies and really adorable cats.

The itch settled to something manageable after a month or two, and he got a job assisting a Muggle videographer, taping weddings and bar mitzvahs and all the other little rituals that people wanted filmed so they could replay it again and again in miniature. It was weird being in such important parts of peoples' lives, involved but separate, but it was a job and it paid enough for him to get an apartment of his own and it was comfortable, as these things go. Jon only took the broom and cameras out once a month, instead of every day for hours on end.

And then Tom had run into William and Adam, and somewhere in the midst of catching up they'd invited him to join their band. Tom, in turn, asked Jon to come along on tour, and Jon put his broomstick back in his closet and packed a bag. He kept the cameras with him.

Now he has that same urge to get out and go, to _do_ something, to stop sitting around and figure out where he should be, right at this moment. He eyes his broom, but doesn't take it out, just yet. Instead, he mirrors Tom and some of their old Bathory friends, seeing if they want to go out.

It's nice, being around people, the bar they chose crowded and chaotically loud. Jon had thought he would be happy to take some alone time for a while, recharge in solitude after the constant companionship of tour; he'd talked just as longingly about showers and personal space and homes that aren't constantly in motion. Admittedly, those are nice, but Jon gets over the thrill after the first two days.

His apartment is quiet, perfectly soundproofed and warded, unlike the sound-leaking walls of the bus. Jon won't miss the sniping, but he missed the company. It was just nice, to walk into the kitchen and chat with the Butcher over a mug of coffee, or to wander into the lounge late at night and find William there, cross-legged on the purple couch, listening to music. He was always willing to share, both space and music. Half the time, Jon's temporary insomnia would disappear while he was just sitting there and he'd wake up in the morning under a blanket, a fading warm spot beside him.

He thinks he missed something. His chance, maybe. But what chance? What is there, beyond sex, beyond late-night and early-morning conversations, beyond breakfast and jokes and shared glances? Beyond Jon having trouble not staring, sometimes, when William stretches? Beyond William looking over at Jon and biting his lip to hide a smile?

They've never talked about this, not seriously. And how do you start that sort of conversation, anyway? "Hi, we've been having sex a lot recently, why don't we make it official?" Jon doesn't even know if William thinks there's anything to make official. All Jon knows is that this is beginning to seem like a _thing_ , and not just a drunk thing.

They're friends. William's never given him any reason to think otherwise, has he? They're friends, and William is currently driving Tom a little bit nuts, and.

And fuck, Jon has a headache.

He lets his thoughts stew unattended for a while, in favor of taking a few empty photo albums and the huge stack of pictures he took on tour. It's nice, sometimes, to put the photos in order, day by day. Pictures of flowers and towns mix in with photos of people — Brendon laughing, Tom smoking, Ryan and Spencer talking quietly, the Butcher walking on his hands, the techs for Hellogoodbye opening up the bottom floor of the bus to drag the set out.

He's always been interested in the difference between magical and Muggle photos, capturing a personality versus capturing a moment. There's something to be said for having a picture wave at you, but still photography has a balance that Jon likes, the composition unchanging. It's a split second that will last as long as the paper does.

On the first night of tour, Tom took some photos in the lounge of everyone there, most of the bands on the tour and Jon and some of the other techs — Enrique, Austin, Leia — all scattered around the room. He gave Jon one of the prints, and sometimes Jon likes to watch it for a while, comparing all the miniature simulacrums to their real-life counterparts. Adam wanders around the room, laughing and clapping people on the back; Mike swigs a beer and occasionally falls into conversation with one person or another. The Butcher tags along with Sisky half the time, but sometimes it looks as if he's making up drinking games and teaching them to the younger bands. Jon and William never stir from the couch, where they've been having an intense discussion for almost as long as Jon has had the image.

Jon didn't think too much of it until after the third time, which was when he switched to only taking pictures of William with Muggle film. Even that is revealing in its own way, though, because the stillness lets you scrutinise every detail more clearly, and details are damning. There's one picture in particular that Jon stares at for a long time before he puts it in the album — William in those pink plaid pajama pants, his hair curling over one eye, looking up at Jon with a slight, sweet smile. (Photography, Jon's old boss told him once, is all in the way the photographer makes the camera see the subject. It has nothing at all to do with the actual lens.)

Jon closes up the albums and goes out with his friends, some of whom he's barely even seen since graduation. Tom shows up a fair number of times, laughing and out-drinking them all. It's just like old times, except in old times Jon never looked across the room, saw a skinny, beautiful guy with long hair, and wondered for just one second, _Is that him?_

Jon feels antsy inside, dissatisfied without actually being unhappy, but he can't figure out what's wrong, or what the hell he should do about it.

Every time Jon passes the mirror hanging ostentatiously in his living room (a joint birthday present from Cassie and Tom, the year he got his apartment — they said they wanted to make sure he actually stayed in contact with people, but Jon strongly suspects they also just had fun picking out the most curlicued, gilded mirror they could find), he decides not to make a decision.

It's incredibly lame and he knows it, but he just can't bring himself to actually pick up the Wondermir. Jon prefers waiting to seeking, sometimes. Most of the time, to be honest. There's nothing wrong with relaxing and letting things come as they will, is there?

"What if they never come?" Cassie demands, lounging on his sofa as Jon quietly considers the mirror. She's using her second cousin's wedding as an excuse to come home for a few days, even though she could have just Portkeyed over an hour or two beforehand and then left a little after the reception. Jon can't begrudge her the brief vacation, though; it's been too long since he's seen her.

Jon shrugs. "As long as I don't complain, it's fine, right?"

"Jon," Cassie sighs, like he figures she would. She's always told him he's too passive. "Seriously? You've been fidgeting for fifteen minutes and you started this incredibly vague conversation. That _is_ your version of complaining. What is it that you're too scared of actually trying to get this time?"

Jon hesitates over telling her for half a second, but if he doesn't, she'll just coerce him into it eventually. Cassie's pretty great like that. And she's right; he wouldn't have mentioned his theory about relaxing if he didn't secretly want to talk about it. Over seven years, Cassie trained him out of most aspects of his own self-denial. Not all, but most.

"I slept with William," he admits. "Four times."

Cassie won't be bothered, he's pretty sure. She's dating again, a nice guy named James who promised Jon that he would never break her heart. She'd started trying to set Jon up almost as soon as they broke up, but none of her plans have ever taken. It's just felt wrong, every time.

Sure enough, Cassie whistles, trying to keep her face neutral but failing to hold back the glee. "In one night, or over a while?" The look on his face must be pretty telling, because she nods and answers her own question. "Okay, a while. Shit, Jon, that's practically a habit."

"Yeah," Jon admits, almost ruefully. He doesn't actually regret anything, though, which is kind of funny, because Jon doesn't do this sort of repeated hooking-up. He occasionally has one-night stands, small things, drunken encounters with people he sort of knows. Before that — well, before that was Cassie, and when Jon was fifteen he thought he was going to marry Cassie.

So much for that plan. Jon graduated and went on tour with the Academy, and he and Cassie agreed that they would just let things fade. They had different paths to follow. She's at a wizarding university in California, now, probably getting stoned on kelpweed every weekend in between being completely brilliant and awing all her professors.

They used to sneak out when they were at Bathory, slipping out to the grounds late at night to curl up against a tree and talk, his arms wrapped around her waist. Cassie's amazing, really, smart and dedicated and passionate, and Jon always loved finding out her perspective on things.

And making out with her, obviously, but getting to keep one out of two isn't bad.

"So you're not going to see him until you guys go on tour again?" Cassie asks, putting the pieces together. She wrinkles her nose at Jon. "Are you stupid, or just lazy?"

"Hey," Jon protests mildly, shoving her with a foot. "What would you know about it?"

"I've met William, moron," Cassie reminds him, shoving him back. Her shove is a little harder than Jon's was. "He's a great guy, the sex was obviously good enough for you to do it four times, and every time you mirrored me from tour, you had a new story about him or something interesting he said. So what's the problem?"

"Are you kidding me?" Jon asks, a little incredulous. "Have you talked to Tom about how writing songs has been?"

"It hasn't been bad enough for him to leave the band yet," Cassie points out, and Jon rubs his forehead. She crosses her legs, leaning forward to placing her hand on his arm. "Jon, it's a rough patch. I've had rough patches with Tom, and you know I love that asshole wolf. Remember sixth year, when we barely spoke for two months?"

"I remember that it sucked," Jon tells her wryly, tilting sideways to rest against the back of the couch. "Look, I like William, but I just don't think it would work out, if he even wanted it."

"Well, then," Cassie responds thoughtfully, and a little teasingly, "I guess that means you'll probably have to stop making googly eyes whenever you think about him — shut up, you're doing it right now." Jon closes his mouth, his instinctive protest aborted before it even began. He's sure he wasn't making googly eyes. "And having sex again is definitely out of the question."

"I can't help it!" Jon tries to explain, his voice rising a fraction. And his head still fucking hurts, irritatingly enough. "I just — get drunk, and then it happens." It's amazing, really; last time, they'd started out in completely different buses, but they'd just gravitated towards each other over the course of the evening.

"So stop getting drunk, or stop going on tour with The Academy Is..., then." Cassie sounds long-suffering, which Jon supposes is fair. She didn't come home expecting to deal with her ex-boyfriend's minor freak-out about... whatever it is Jon has with William. "Remember what you were saying earlier about complaining? This definitely counts. By your own rules, doesn't that mean you actually have to do something about it?"

"I just —" Jon's not entirely sure how to explain it, because he's not entirely sure he understands what it is he wants to explain. There was something there, those four mornings where he woke up next to William, something familiar and sweet, like waking up from dreaming about Yule only to realise that it _is_ Yule. He tries a different tack instead. "I don't want to stop going on tour with them. I don't want to stop hanging out with him." He really, really doesn't want to stop hanging out with William. Or having sex with him, but at least Jon can tell himself that being friends is still a good idea.

"Hmm. I guess that means you're going to have to mirror him and say, 'Hey, Bill, I'm in love with you. We should get married.'" Cassie looks at Jon completely seriously, her eyebrows raised as if she's expecting Jon to jump up and follow her command immediately.

Jon laughs, his hand over his eyes. "I'm not in love with him, Cass." It definitely isn't love, he knows that. It's just — great sex and William. Jon's always liked William, beyond how gorgeous he is; he's brilliant and sincere, and has a flair for words, and he's so in love with music that he gave up everything for it. They've been hanging out so much more on this tour that Jon has gotten to appreciate it all from close up. Sometimes he'll wake up in the middle of the night and go to grab himself a glass of water, only to find William already there, and they'll just sit in the lounge and chill for hours. It's like all the tension on the bus just... disappears.

Or. The angry tension does, anyway. And it's possible that Jon has a type, alright? So what?

Cassie shrugs, like she doesn't really care. "I bet you could be. Given the opportunity."

"Which is what I'm trying to avoid," Jon reminds her, attempting to circle the conversation back around. "Because it's such a bad idea?"

"Jon." Cassie doesn't seem impressed by Jon's reasoning. "If you want to do nothing, feel free. You're going to drive yourself insane, but feel free."

"He's a great guy, Cass." Cassie nods in agreement, and Jon continues, "I don't want to stop being friends with him." There's just so much that could go wrong, Tom and Jon's job and his friendship with William — not to mention the rest of the band. "I don't even know how he feels about me."

"So don't lead off with the marriage proposal," Cassie suggests, finally leaning back and resting against the arm of the couch. "Just go see him. You should get out of your apartment anyway, you look like you're going stir-crazy."

"I go out every night," Jon tells her, only grumbling a little. It's just this headache, okay.

"So go out with William," Cassie says impatiently. "Ask him if he wants to get coffee or something. You guys are friends, you're allowed to do that stuff randomly." She should talk. She walked into Jon's apartment without even knocking. "Look, I'm only willing to be your wise, advice-dispensing ex-girlfriend for so long, so you should at least listen when I humor you."

Jon takes this in for a moment, weighing her words. "He was curious about Muggle music," Jon says slowly, thinking it over. "I could ask if he wants to go to Muggle Chicago one afternoon." They could go to one of Jon's favorite record shops. No designs, just Jon being a good friend and remembering something William mentioned once at three in the morning.

"Good," Cassie approves, smiling happily. "Now, is that settled? Because I've been waiting for about half an hour for you to insist that I tell you absolutely everything new in my life, and I've got some really good stories stockpiled."

"Cassie," Jon says solemnly, holding both her hands and looking into her eyes, "I insist that you tell me absolutely everything new in your life. Except the things I really won't want to hear."

Cassie snorts and starts talking, and Jon thinks, a few days. He can mirror William in a few days. It's not like either of them are going anywhere soon, are they?

/

Two days after he makes his imprecisely-timed sort-of-decision, his mirror chimes faintly. Then it chimes louder, and louder, until Jon rushes over to accept the Wondermir and sees Ryan's reflection, with Spencer in the background looking furious.

"Hey, so we need to ask you a really big favor," Ryan informs Jon in a rushed monotone, before Jon has a chance to do anything more than blink confusedly at the glass.

"If you can't do it, that's fine," Spencer interrupts, with an unsuccessful attempt at a smile that Jon thinks was meant to be reassuring. "We can find someone else."

"It's really short notice," Ryan adds, sharing an unreadable glance with Spencer, and Jon really just wishes he knew what they were talking about.

"What is it?" he asks, waiting patiently. He'd be happy to do them a favor — they're his friends, after all, and they're awesome — but Ryan, Spencer and Brendon all have this issue in that they tend to assume the rest of the world can read their minds, when really, it's just a band thing. Jon's fairly certain even a Legilimens wouldn't be able to get it.

"We need you to take over for Brent," Ryan says, with no inflection whatsoever. Jon's gotten to know Ryan fairly well, though — there were a lot of tense days on the Academy bus — and it's a safe bet that Ryan's experiencing some hurricane-sized turmoil right now. Spencer doesn't look to be any better controlled.

"Just for one show," Spencer explains hurriedly. "He bailed on us — he's doing something with his girlfriend, I don't know — and —"

"Hey," Jon reassures him hastily, "Of course I'll do it. When's the show?"

Ryan glances down, and Spencer looks a little sheepish. "Um. Tomorrow," he says, rubbing the back of his neck, and Jon raises his eyebrows.

"You weren't kidding about the short notice," he replies, feeling a little impressed despite himself. It's not going to change anything, of course. Brendon, Spencer and Ryan are his friends; he's not going to just leave them in the lurch. "Okay, just let me get packed. And I'll need to learn the part a little better."

He's already waving his wand; if he concentrates hard enough, he thinks he might be able to get his clothes out of his drawer, into a suitcase, and downstairs, all without moving. It's doubtful — he'll probably have to supervise the magical packing — but, you know, it could happen.

"We can help you with that!" Spencer promises. "We'll get to Chicago in about two hours, and until then —"

Just then, a jet of green flame appears in Jon's fireplace, and Brendon rolls out, rubbing soot into Jon's carpet. That one's going to be a bitch to get out, even with William's handy repertoire of cleaning spells.

"I have a Brendon in my hearth," he says slowly, looking at said Brendon, who grins at him unabashedly.

"He volunteered to help you with the bass part," Ryan explains, looking amused in that peculiarly Ryan way, which means that you might, if you're incredibly observant, see the corners of his mouth twitch. "And the packing."

"Jon doesn't need help with packing," Brendon laughs, pointing to the kitchen, where Jon's bag sits waiting. "He's already got it covered." Huh. Awesome. Maybe Jon is getting better at that spell.

"Bass part?" he suggests, waving his wand at the mess on the carpet. In less than a minute, the carpet is as good as new and Brendon, no longer shedding soot, has found Jon's bass.

"Come on," Brendon says, bouncing. "How much do you know of Ourobouros?"

/

One concert turns into a summer tour, leaving almost immediately, and Jon signs on. It's a temporary thing, after all, and even if it isn't, he likes Panic, and he likes playing. He was never planning on being a tech forever, not really. He just likes anything musical that lets him hang out with his friends.

He _doesn't_ like this headache, which has been lingering for a few weeks now. He's starting skipping most of the post-show parties in favor of going to his room (and it is an actual room, as opposed to his space on the Academy bus, which was barely big enough for the bed, a mirror and a minuscule closet) and going to sleep. He feels lame, but nobody mocks him, which tells him he must really look like shit. He can see Spencer, Ryan and Brendon fighting to keep themselves from fussing over him every afternoon.

Strangely enough, he feels fine during shows, probably because of the rush, and in the mornings. He likes to think that his dreams are restful, but he can't remember them.

Unfortunately, he's gotten so much sleep recently that sometimes he just physically can't sleep anymore. He has to compromise, then, going out and taking photos nearby, or reading a book until he finally gets drowsy. He's in the midst of the second option (The Whispering Wood, by Trelly Silawney, the fifth book in a series; he's gotten through the other four in the past week) when William mirrors him.

"I hear that you didn't even put up a fight when they stole you away from us," he announces before Jon even has a chance to say hello. William is trying to look stern, but the corner of his mouth is twitching, and Jon can't help smiling. "I'm offended, Walker. I thought we would have at least deserved a token protest."

"More than a token protest," Jon replies almost without thinking, and seriously, how does this keep on _happening_ around William? "But those Panic boys, you know, they're sneaky. And it's only temporary."

"That's what they want you to believe," William explains darkly, shaking his head. "They're just luring you in. Before you know it, you'll be a permanent member and thousands of thirteen-year-old witches will be trying to slip love potions into your coffee."

"Not the coffee!" Jon gasps, mock-horrified.

"Yes, the — are you all right?" William's tone switches abruptly, from overly dramatic to sincerely concerned. "You look terrible."

"Thanks," Jon replies dryly, setting his book down and crossing his legs on the bed, leaning against the headboard. "I'm fine, really. It's just a headache."

"Hangover headache?" William wonders, raising his eyebrows, but Jon shakes his head. God, he wishes this was just a hangover. At least those go away. William frowns, adding, "You know that's what we have magic for, right?"

"The potions and charms we've tried only last about an hour, tops," Jon sighs. It comes and goes, though, luckily. Right now it's going, he notices with a wave of relief. "It's okay. It's not that bad, it's just persistent."

"If you're sure," William says doubtfully, still looking worried. He's not looking all that fabulous himself, Jon notices, although he's sure as hell not going to say anything. It's not like William isn't still ridiculously attractive; the sleep-circles under his eyes are just a little darker, his skin just a little paler, so it's easier to see the faint freckles that are normally almost invisible.

"How are you doing?" Jon asks, trying to keep his voice casual. He can't help but wonder if William seeming so exhausted has anything to do with the band; Jon's been talking regularly to Tom, but they've been steering clear of that subject. Tom doesn't like to dwell on the things that stress him out.

"Me?" William asks, pointing at himself, which Jon has to take a moment to appreciate the adorableness of before he forcibly censors his brain. "I'm fine. Besides, we weren't talking about me, we were talking about you. Is your band not taking care of you?"

"They're taking care of me just fine," Jon promises William. "And they're not my band." First Brendon, now William — people keep on assigning Jon things that don't really belong to him.

William shakes his head, the corner of his mouth quirking up just the slightest bit. "They're not going to give you back, Jon." And yeah, maybe Jon's caught Spencer watching him assessingly, has seen Ryan leaning over his hand mirror, caught up in serious discussions with Pete, has noticed the way Brendon only just catches himself before talking about the future, but it seems so much more real when William says it. "Who would voluntarily give you up?" There's something indefinable in William's gaze before he frowns outrageously at Jon. "We certainly didn't. Tell Ross that one of these days I'm going to throw a gauntlet at his face."

"Dueling for my honor?" Jon asks, grinning. "I'm touched."

William's eyes soften. "We are happy for you, you know. I'm happy for you. They'll treat you well." He and Jon just look at each other for a long moment, both of them in the quiet space between silence and speaking. Eventually William laughs lightly and amends, "They'd better, at least, because if they don't I'm just going to steal you back. I know where you live, remember."

"I don't know," Jon muses, stroking his chin. "They're kind of scrappy."

"I could take them," William tells him confidently, raising his chin. "I have good backup. Besides, Chicago beats Vegas any day of the week."

Jon can't exactly disagree with that; he may be a (temporary) member of Panic, but he's still a Chicago boy. There's no way the desert can beat a city that actually has four seasons per year, not just hot, less hot, and more hot. "Are you expecting me to argue?" he asks, amused. "Because you'll be waiting a long time before that will happen."

"At least we still have a part of your heart," William says, sighing dramatically. "I was beginning to wonder if those boys had completely corrupted you."

"Not a chance. Chicago is still the king of all cities." And speaking of that... Jon takes a breath, reminds himself to kill Cassie if this turns out badly, and tries to sound casual when he asks, "Hey, did you still want to go to a record store? We're going to be back from tour in seven weeks, and I'd been planning on going into Muggle Chicago."

William brightens, his eyes wide and excited, but before he can say anything Adam runs into the frame. "Bill!" he scolds. "You're supposed to be lying down right now!"

"I had to properly scold Jon for just letting himself be stolen!" William insists, and Jon looks at the two of them curiously.

Adam rolls his eyes. "He's had the flu for about a week now," he explains to Jon, glaring at William. "The healers say he'll get better if he actually _stays in bed_ for a few days."

"It has not been a week," William scoffs, looking away from the mirror guiltily. "It's only been three days."

"The flu?" Jon asks, glancing at Adam before returning his gaze to William. "I thought that was what potions and charms were for, Mr. I'm Perfectly Fine."

"It's not that bad," William mutters. "It'll go away. I just haven't been able to sleep very well, and I got sick."

"Which is why you should be in bed," Adam persists, and William sighs. "Bill! Seriously. You haven't been sleeping, and you've been overextending yourself with magic since you finally managed to Transfigure a teacup into a wren, and you threw up about three times yesterday. The healer said _bed_."

"Alright! I'm going, I'm going," William concedes, throwing his arms in the air. "Just let me say goodbye to Jon."

"You have four minutes," Adam informs him, waving a threatening finger, and William nods absently.

There's a brief, silent pause after Adam disappears from the frame, until William gives a rueful laugh and looks at Jon sheepishly. "So, Muggle Chicago?"

"If you're feeling better by then," Jon promises, trying to look stern and forbidding. He's pretty sure he fails, which is fine; he wasn't trying very hard, anyway.

"And what if I'm not?" William wonders, a smile playing about the corner of his mouth again. "You going to order me on bedrest?"

"I guess we'll have to see, won't we?" Jon asks, his voice deepening almost automatically. He blesses Cassie from the bottom of his heart.

"I think it's definitely something we could discuss," William responds, and they just look at each other for a moment until William says, "I really do have to go back to bed."

Jon knows that William means that he's finally tired enough to go to sleep, but a small smile crosses his lips anyway. "Have fun."

"You, too," William says, and both of them shut their mirrors down.

Jon is really looking forward to going home. And his headache feels a little better, too.

/

Two days later, Ryan, Spencer and Brendon ask Jon if he wants to join the band permanently. And then, five weeks later, Tom mirrors Jon in the middle of the night and says, "I'm not in the band anymore."

Jon, who had been standing up to put on his pajama pants, sits down on his bed with a soft exhalation. "Shit," he says eventually. It might not be particularly articulate, but he thinks it's fairly expressive. "How are you doing?"

Tom shrugs, which is also pretty expressive in its own way. He looks drained, and all Jon can think is, thank Circe this happened during the half-moon. Tom would be in a lot worse shape if it was the week of the full moon. "I'm okay. Or I will be," he tells Jon, sounding exhausted. "I'm just going to sleep for a few days. And — would it be okay if I came along with you guys for a while? On tour? Just for a little while."

"Of course, man," Jon responds immediately. He hasn't asked the rest of his band — and they really are his band, now — but he can't imagine them saying no. They all like Tom; he knows they've been worried about the news trickling through the grapevine, the rumors of bigger and more intense fights. "I mean, I do have to ask, but I'm sure they'll say yes."

"Thanks. Thank you. I'll go home for the moon, but..." He leans against the wall, closing his eyes. "I need to get out of Chicago for a while."

Jon can only imagine. They all have interlapping layers of memories all over the city, bars they've gone with each other, venues they've played, fountains they've jumped into together on dares. It's only two hours away from Bathory, where they all spent seven years together.

It's just a hair away from Muggle Chicago, where Jon had been planning to take William. He's thought about it for the past few weeks, told William brief snippets of his plan — this really good Muggle restaurant, this awesome record shop, one or two places that just can't be missed.

"I'm assuming it wasn't exactly amicable," he says, and feels like a moron even before he finishes the sentence. He needs to know, though. It's so incredibly selfish, but he needs to find out just how much wiggle room he has, here, because the thought of never seeing William again feels a little bit like a knife to the stomach.

The way Tom rubs his nose is enough of an answer, and Jon tries to resolve himself. This is Tom, after all. Tom will always have Jon's back, and Jon will always have Tom's. You don't sleep with the lead singer of the band your best friend just got kicked out of. You don't date him.

It's almost funny, how easily Jon can admit now that he does — did — want that with William. He wanted to date William Beckett.

He can't date William Beckett. It would probably be better if they didn't even see each other for a while, at least until Tom can listen to their music without wincing.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Jon asks cautiously. Tom takes a deep breath, and Jon thinks for a moment that he's going to respond, going to detail the ways William Beckett is a terrible person who ruined his life, but in the end Tom just lets out the breath again and shakes his head.

"Not right now," he says, his eyes still closed, and Jon nods before realising, duh, Tom won't be able to see it.

"Yeah, okay," he tells Tom. "Come out as soon as you can, okay? I'll owl you our schedule, you can tell us where to pick you up."

Tom nods. "Thanks," he repeats, and cuts the connection. He's going off to sleep, hopefully. Jon wishes he had that option; he's feeling a little drained himself, but he's still got one more person to mirror.

"Jon," Cassie says when she enables the connection, looking a little surprised. They did just talk this morning, after all. "What's up? Did something happen?"

"It's not just a rough patch," Jon says, looking down at his abandoned pajama pants, lying forlornly on the floor.

Cassie frowns for a moment, perplexed, before her face clears. "He's not —"

"Yeah."

"Did you talk —"

"No. Not yet."

"And Tom..."

"Doesn't know." And will never know, if Jon has anything to do with it. Jon almost wishes again for the blissful ignorance of Obliviate, but he's scared of fucking with his mind, and anyway, with his luck it probably wouldn't even work.

"Jon," Cassie sighs, and Jon abruptly, painfully wishes she were here in person to give him a hug. "I'm sorry."

He smiles at her a little wistfully. "Sometimes I think life would be a lot easier if we had just stayed together."

Cassie looks a little helpless, her hair shifting over her shoulders, her mouth twisting worriedly, her eyes apologetic. Carefully, she says, "I'm not entirely certain it wouldn't have happened anyway."

Jon's not sure how to respond to that (Jon's not sure it's not true, as much as he wants to protest it, because the truth is when he thinks about William it's so hard to think about anyone else), so he doesn't respond at all.

/

William looks wary when he comes to the mirror, wary and just as tired and miserable as Tom. Jon's immediate reaction is an instinctive desire to ask him if he's okay, to sit both of them down and just let William talk until he's feeling a little better, but.

"Jon," he says, his voice just a shade away from casual. "How's it going?"

"It's good," Jon replies, feeling like there's too much awkwardness in his system and in a minute, he's going to vomit it all up. "You know."

"Tour's good?"

They've never bothered with these sorts of pointless pleasantries, not since they were eleven. They've never really needed to, but Jon feels himself grasping onto the uneasy, insignificant small talk like it's some sort of rope, something to hang onto when he has no idea how to say what he needs to say. And it's even worse, because Jon doesn't want to say it at all; he can feel every part of his body rebelling against him when he tries, his throat closing up, his tongue almost choking him. His mouth feels as dry as the desert in Vegas.

He's kind of pathetic, to be honest, but maybe that's how it goes. Besides, it's entirely possible that honesty is overrated.

"Yeah, it's been going great. The crowds have been pretty good." Jon tries to swallow. It fails, but he still manages to say, "We're coming home soon."

"I guess you guys are going to be pretty busy when you come back." They both sound so bland, their faces devoid of expression, but it's impossible to spend so long with somebody without learning some of their tells. Jon can read the flash of disappointment in William's eyes and hear the resigned edge to his voice.

"Yeah. I might even head out to Vegas for a little while." Jon has to look away for a moment, just to be able to keep his face blank. He has to keep going, though. He can't just cop out and let what they both know hang in the air. William deserves better than that, at least. "I know we were supposed to hang out —"

Thankfully, William puts him out of his misery. "I get it," he says quickly, trying for a smile. "It's fine. I'll get someone else to show me around Muggle Chicago."

Jon ignores the flash of pain in his stomach and says, "Have fun. Try not to cause a scene — I don't think any Muggle has ever had to deal with anything like you in a dramatic mood." If William can smile, Jon can joke, even if it fails just as badly as the smile did.

"Yeah," William agrees, nodding tightly. "Have fun on tour. And in Vegas."

"Yeah," Jon says, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Yeah," William repeats, wrapping his arms over his chest.

Jon's been trying to look at William without looking at him, keeping his eyes on William's hair, his mouth, his forehead, but his gaze slips and locks onto William's eyes. He can't keep his face impassive like this. He can't keep control of anything like this, and instinctively, he says, "William —"

"Jon —" William says at almost exactly the same time, and he sounds exactly the same way Jon feels, like something's been torn out of him. Jon tries to take a step forward, but his foot hits the wall before he moves it more than two inches.

He jumps back, startled, and sees William do the same. When did they each get so close to the mirror?

Jon clears his throat, keeping his eyes firmly on the frame of the mirror. "Okay. Well — talk to you later," he says, and almost wants to hit himself a second later. He couldn't just have gone for a single goodbye? _Talk to you later._ It's lingering in the air, practically radiating irony.

"Bye," William says, and they cut the connection at the same time.

 

/

_five._

Jon wakes up and thinks, _Fuck._

He's not in his own bed — not in his apartment, where he should be, or the walking house, where he sometimes crashes after late nights with Spencer, Brendon and Ryan. He's definitely in a bus, and he's almost positive he knows what bus, since he knows the body wrapped around him better than he should after only seeing it naked four times.

Well, five, now. Fucking Pete and his fucking parties — "It'll be great! We'll all Apparate in, everyone will be there!" — and fucking... everything. Fuck.

Jon had stuck to butterbeer for the entire goddamn night, and he'd determinedly kept himself as far away from William as possible. He thinks William must have been doing the same, since they didn't run into each other for three straight hours, and Jon's sure he saw every single other person on the label at least five times.

Except then he'd wandered into the kitchen to grab himself another butterbeer, and of course the kitchen had been conveniently empty. Well, almost empty. Jon doesn't think he's ever going to forget that feeling, the one of the entire world dropping away. Like on his old Blue Streak, the moment when his heart had rejoined the rest of him and he'd been soaring up more quickly than he'd ever flown before, just him and the broom and the tops of the trees falling away.

Now, he feels a little like he did when he finally landed on the ground and almost threw up. He's curled around William, one arm wrapped firmly around William's chest. Their legs are tangled together, and if Jon lets himself hesitate here for one more second, he's not sure he's going to leave.

No. No, no, no. Jon takes one last look at the way William's hair falls across his forehead, then snatches up his jeans. He doesn't even bother putting them on before he Apparates out of the bed, out of the bus, back to his small, empty, safe apartment.

He has no idea what the hell he's supposed to do anymore. Not, he thinks ruefully, that he ever really did to begin with. And that fucking headache is coming back.

/

He doesn't even last a day before he tries to mirror William. The Wondermir simply sticks to the surface of the mirror, sliding around to form a monochromatic image of William, which opens its mouth and says in a spray of purple dust, "Sorry, I'm talking to someone else right now. Leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I want to talk to you."

What is Jon supposed to say in a message? He disables the connection instead, watching the powder fall off the mirror to land in a shimmering heap on the floor. After a minute, Jon sighs, kneeling to gather it in the palm of his hand. He tries again.

"Sorry, I'm talking to someone else right now. Leave a message — including your name, not just the sound of your breathing, Pete — and I'll mirror you back when I'm done. Unless you're Pete, in which case I probably won't."

The powder falls. Jon tries again.

"Sorry, I'm talking to someone else right now. If you take the time to leave a message, I'll probably take the time to mirror you back. If you're too impatient for that, you probably aren't even bothering to listen to this right now."

The powder falls again. This time, Jon lets it stay on the floor. The third time is supposed to be the charm, isn't it? Obviously this just isn't meant to be.

Jon pours himself a glass of water and takes a swig, which he almost spits out when his mirror chimes. Jon accepts the Wondermir, only to see William's face fade into view on the mirror's surface.

He almost laughs hysterically, instead drinking half his glass of water in a single swallow and suddenly fighting the desire to magic it into something stronger than water.

William looks oddly intent as he asks, "Jon. How did you get off the bus?"

Jon stares at William for a moment, incredulous. "What?"

"How did you get off the bus?" William repeats, leaning forward and pushing his hair out of his face. He cut it, Jon noticed last night. It looks nice. "Did you Apparate?"

"What the fuck?" Jon clarifies, wondering why William doesn't seem to get the absurdity of his own question. "We had sex last night after avoiding each other for a month and a half, and you want to know how the fuck I got home?"

William rolls his eyes and snaps, "Well, we've had sex a few times, but you Apparating off a _moving, warded bus_ is kind of new, don't you think?"

Jon takes a moment to think about that, and then another. He stumbles back a few steps, finally backing into something solid and sitting down heavily on the arm of the couch. "What the fuck?" he repeats, bewildered.

William sighs, passing one hand through his already-disheveled hair. He's fully clothed, but his lips are bruised, and Jon can see the edge of a hickey peeking out from under William's shirt collar. "I should have suspected this a while ago," he says hopelessly. "I feel like such a moron right now. I just — got so caught up, I guess, in everything..."

"Suspected what?" Jon asks, trying to keep his voice even.

"My great-grandmother is a Veela," William states flatly, and Jon blinks. He's not sure what he was expecting, but that definitely wasn't it. "Usually it only passes to girls, but sometimes a few of the traits get passed onto a son."

"Okay?" Jon says questioningly, trying to figure out where the hell he fits into all of this. It does explain why William is so gorgeous, but it doesn't explain why Jon is the only one William had sex with on that entire damn tour. (Jon would definitely have noticed if William slept with anyone else; they each had their own room, but that doesn't change the fact that they were all crammed onto a single bus with shoddy soundproofing.) Shouldn't William have been overwhelmed by swarms of people trying to have sex with him?

William takes a deep breath, like he's worried about Jon's reaction to what he's about to say. "Veela mate for life." When Jon doesn't say anything, William hurriedly adds, "It's not like I mate with whoever I sleep with, there's a complicated explanation about emotions and magical reactions that I won't get into, but — when I sleep with someone for the first time, the magic tries to figure out if there's something there."

"And if there is, you guys are mated?" Jon's brain feels blank, like someone bored a hole in it and drained all his thoughts out. What the fuck?

William hesitates. "Not exactly. Not immediately." He shakes his head and curses under his breath. "I should have known with that fucking headache spell, I've never been able to do it that well before..."

"And this relates to the Apparating how, exactly?" Jon asks, ignoring the fact that he's apparently on his way to being magically bonded to William. Which, what? This is — Jon doesn't understand anything that's going on here, at all.

"Taking a mate, bonding, makes your magic stronger," William admits, rubbing the back of his neck. "I think that's why I've always been so shitty at it. I didn't understand why I've been getting so much better recently, I thought — well, anyway. You won't always be able to Apparate out of warded areas, but Veela magic is a lot more emotions-based. You really wanted to, so..." He waves one hand vaguely. "It happened."

Jon thinks back to all the times he's slept with William, that feeling of need, of how _important_ it always seems that he kiss William. "Did I ever have a choice?" he demands, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "Did that fucking — that Veela magic, whatever it is, did it just decide that I would do and make it so that I liked you? So that I slept with you?"

William exhales, just an angry gust of air that fogs up the mirror for a brief moment before disappearing. "Yes and no," he says shortly, crossing his arms, one hand gripping his bicep tightly. "It's not a consent thing. If you weren't attracted to me, you wouldn't have had sex with me. It just enhanced whatever you already felt — whatever _we_ already felt — so that sex seemed like a really, really good idea. Even though obviously it wasn't." He glares at nothing in particular. "It didn't have anything to do with you liking me. It didn't force me to want to hang out with you."

Jon concentrates on his breathing for a second, the hurt in William's voice spurring him to try and think logically. The wiser part of his brain, which generally sounds oddly like Cassie, is forcing him to remember just what he likes about William. He likes how William is smart, how he sees things differently than most people, how he loves to just play around with words or try to find obscure, intricate spells. He would do anything for his friends and he loves music more than almost anything else.

Jon saw Veelas, once, when his parents took him to watch a bunch of Quidditch games in Europe for his seventeenth birthday. They made him feel overwhelmed, like there was some sort of buzzing in his ears that sapped away all his free will, until he was completely consumed by their presence.

That doesn't have anything to do with what he likes about William. That doesn't feel anything like it felt, sitting on the couch with William and just talking, night after night.

"Okay," Jon says, taking a breath. "Okay. You said it doesn't happen immediately?"

"No," William admits, glancing down. "It just gets stronger the more you sleep together, and you get a lot of the symptoms, like the magic and your body reacting to being farther away from each other."

Jon stares at him. "My headache —"

William looks unhappy, his mouth twisting. "My insomnia. And the flu."

At least Jon never threw up. But no, that's not the point right now. The point is — "How many times does it have to happen?"

"Um." William coughs, shifting on his feet. "Seven."

Jon stares at him, fighting back horror. "You know we've had sex five times, right?" he finally manages to demand.

"I can count," William retorts, without any true edge to his voice. He looks up, and they just stare at each other for a moment. William looks tired, Jon notices, with the faint wrinkles at the corners of the eyes that mean he's unhappy. Jon just wants to touch him — not romantically, just a touch, pressing his fingers to William's cheek or brushing a hand along William's shoulder. He wants to give William something to hang on to, but there's a few hundred miles, a mirror, several good reasons, and a name in between them.

"It's still a bad idea," Jon says instead, his voice quiet, and William just nods.

"Obviously if we're ever in the same room together, we won't be able to stop it. The parting pains will stop, after a few months," he says, his eyes focused on the floor by Jon's feet. Jon wiggles his bare toes, and William quirks a reluctant half-smile. "So. I guess this means Muggle Chicago really is out."

"I guess so." Jon can't look up either, even with William gazing elsewhere. "I'm sorry, William."

"Yeah," William agrees. "I'm sorry too."

Jon cuts the connection without looking up; he doesn't want to watch William's face disappear from the glass.

/

_six._

Jon wakes up, in a way. It's not really waking up so much as going from a deep sleep to a light doze, half-aware of the real world without actually being awake.

He and William are in a bed in the middle of purple-flecked nothing, and all Jon can do is stare until William shifts and blinks his eyes open.

"You didn't warn me about this one," Jon says lightly, and William groans, burying his face in Jon's chest before he realises what he's doing and scoots backwards quickly.

"I didn't know! It's not like there are many books about this!" William says, his words muffled by the pillow he's pulled over his head. "I thought I was dreaming!"

"It was a good dream," Jon admits before he can talk himself out of it.

Next to him, William sighs, letting the pillow fall away. "Yeah," he says wistfully. "It was."

Jon waits for a moment, staring at the streaks of purple glinting in the air around them. "So what now?" he asks.

"Now?" William asks, sounding thoughtful. "Now I think we wake up for real."

"No, I meant with the —" Jon tries to explain, but everything fades away and he's back in his room in the walking house, in his bed, with a fading warm spot next to him but nobody there.

/

"So if you were sort of being magically coerced into sleeping with someone, but sort of not, and there were a lot of reasons why it would be a really, really bad idea, what would you do?" Jon asks his bandmates, picking up a slice of pizza. It's the one Muggle food that all of his wizarding friends adore wholeheartedly. "Hypothetically."

Spencer and Ryan stare at him bemusedly, their lack of comprehension evident on their faces, but Brendon looks shocked. "Shit, how far away from seven are you and William?"

Jon almost chokes on his pizza. He, Spencer, and Ryan all turn practically simultaneously to gape at Brendon, who looks back expectantly until Jon asks slowly, "How the hell did you know that?"

Brendon flushes. "It's a family thing," he mutters, tapping out a rhythm against the table with a finger. "I mean, not being a Veela, obviously, but — we learn this stuff." Jon nods and doesn't ask anymore. He knows more about Brendon's family, now; it's not something they need to get into.

"Veela?" Spencer demands incredulously, and Jon sighs. He hadn't exactly wanted to explain it — that was why he'd been so vague in the first place — but he should have figured that wasn't going to cut it. "Would somebody mind explaining? Because I would really like to actually knows what's going on right now."

Jon shrugs slightly, trying to figure out the simplest way to phrase it. "Apparently Veela have this thing where if they have sex with the same person seven times, they're mated." Mated. Jon is still trying to take that one in. What does it mean, being mated? How can your hormones and magic tell you if you're going to be able to spend the rest of your life with someone?

Brendon snorts. "Way to make it sound like it's all about fucking, dude." He grabs a slice of mushroom and black olive deep dish and bites part of it off, chewing as he explains, "It's a soul bond. It has to be the person you're going to fall in love with, it doesn't work otherwise."

"So it's like fate," Ryan extrapolates, and Jon is a little amazed that they don't seem to find this as bizarre as it obviously is. He really needs to stop underestimating his bandmate's tolerance for oddity.

"Wait a second," Spencer interrupts, holding his hands out as if to defend himself from the sudden flood of disjointed information. "First of all, Brendon, swallow before you talk, and you can make the dirty joke _later_." Brendon closes his mouth, looking a little disappointed. "Second of all — William is a Veela? Is that what we're getting at here?"

Jon coughs. "Uh, yeah."

"And how many times have you slept with each other?" Spencer asks, scrutinising Jon, who regards his fork consideringly.

"Um. Six." There's a sudden silence, and Jon flushes. "The last time was in a dream! It wasn't my fault!"

"In a dream?" Ryan sounds way too intrigued. Jon knew Ryan had a romantic soul, but he never knew just how bizarrely it expressed itself. "That's so cool."

"Not exactly," Jon says slowly, rubbing his forehead. "It's not like this is a great situation."

"Why not?" Ryan asks, as if he doesn't get what Jon finds so problematic about this, as if he doesn't understand that Jon is sort of in love with someone his best friend can't even talk to, and that if they have sex one more time they'll be tied together for life and Jon is _strangely okay with that._ Jon is not okay with being okay with that. Jon needs to have more of a problem with that, needs to feel horrified that he and William were apparently made for each other and their magics have been pushing them together ever since the first time they had sex.

"William and I promised each other we wouldn't have sex anymore, just to avoid this. It wouldn't be a good idea, with Tom and everything. It's not — it wouldn't work out," Jon reminds himself. "And mating? What the hell?"

"I think it's cool." Ryan tilts his head in consideration. "You were trying to deny it, so the universe brought the two of you together in your dreams."

Spencer shoots Ryan a look. "Maybe Jon doesn't want the universe meddling in his love life. Merlin knows I'm fine without it."

"It's romantic!" Ryan insists.

"It's freaky," Jon interjects, playing absently with a piece of cheese left on his plate. "What if we end up dreaming about the seventh time as well, and then poof, we're mated?"

"You won't," Brendon announces, sounding completely certain. "You can't ever cheat on the last step of something like that. It has to be purposeful."

"Dude, you need to stop pulling this shit out of the air," Spencer tells Brendon, shaking his head. "It's kind of freaky."

"It's just the truth!" Brendon protests. His voice squeaks defensively on the last word. "I don't mock you for knowing all about Muggle stuff, okay."

"Yeah, you do," Ryan reminds him, stealing a bite of Brendon's pizza despite there being at least three slices left in the box.

Brendon shoves him lightly, grabbing it back and stuffing most of it in his mouth. "Like you can talk," he mutters around the crust, cheese, and tomato sauce, spraying crumbs over the table.

Spencer rolls his eyes at them fondly before looking over at Jon. "Do you really not want to do this? You're really sure that you don't want to even talk to William about this?"

"Do you _want_ to spend the rest of your life without him?" Ryan asks curiously, taking his attention away from the still-chewing Brendon in order to peer at Jon.

And all of a sudden Jon realises just how pointless this conversation is, because — "I don't really have a choice," he says, letting it sink in. "I have to."

The room is momentarily silent, before Brendon snorts. With a pointed glance at Spencer, he swallows ostentatiously and says, "Well, that's just stupid."

"I concur," Ryan chimes in, frowning at Jon. "This is magic. You're just saying no?"

"The magic doesn't matter," Spencer says, dismissing it with the wave of a hand. "But dude, you have to actually make a choice about this one. It is kind of a huge, rest-of-your-life deal and all." The _you idiot_ goes unspoken, but it's still pretty apparent.

Jon ignores them all. Not all relationships can be like theirs, something solid that somehow makes sense, despite nobody expecting it to be. Sometimes relationships fade away, like Jon and Cassie; sometimes it makes more sense just not to start them in the first place. Not everything works.

He's feeling settled in his realisation, or settled enough, at least. All he has to do is just let it sink in that he won't be seeing William ever again — never talking to him, or watching him perform, or just catching his eye from across the room at a party. He'll be fine, eventually.

Clearly, though, his bandmates don't agree with this self-assessment. Oh, they pretend to let the argument slide, but they're obviously a lot sneakier than he gave them credit for. Jon doesn't realise just how sneaky until Tom mirrors him the next day.

There's no reason for Tom to be mirroring Jon. They checked in after the full moon five days ago, and the cottage is going to be walking into Chicago in a day and a half. Tom might just be calling to talk about something cool that happened to him today, but —

Just like bad things, awkward conversations come in threes. First William, then his bandmates, and now Tom? Even if Tom doesn't know what's going on, at the moment, talking to him isn't exactly at the top of the list of things Jon wants to do right now.

He knows it's going to be worse than he imagined when Tom doesn't even bother with hello, just skips straight to, "So, your boys mirrored me yesterday." Fuck. Jon thought they were just disappointed in him or having sex or something when they disappeared yesterday afternoon. "And then I mirrored Cassie, and the five us had a very interesting conversation." Tom shoots Jon a look so pointed, it could be used as a spear. "A lot of it was about you."

Jon feels the air go out of his lungs. "Tom, I'm —" Sorry. So sorry that Tom had to find out like this, so sorry that he made Tom think about the Academy, so sorry that they have to be having this conversation.

Tom interrupts, shaking his head sharply and brushing his hair out of his eyes. "Shut up, because I need to say this now, before I convince myself not to." They both pause for a moment, and then Tom says slowly, "As your best friend, it's my job to keep you from being a moron."

What? Jon only just barely manages to keep himself from saying something. This is... really not how he was expecting this conversation to go.

"Yeah, William and I aren't on great terms at the moment." Great terms? As far as Jon knows, they're not even speaking. "But we'll get over it eventually, because it wasn't his fault, okay? It wasn't his fault, it wasn't my fault, it wasn't Adam's fault or Andy's fault or Carden's fault or your fault. Things were bad, and we decided to stop before they got even worse."

Tom crosses his arms over his chest and then uncrosses them, fidgeting slightly. He's never liked making long, heartfelt speeches. "I don't know what the hell's been going on between you and William, except that it makes me sneeze. And right now, I don't really want to know, since I heard Cassie spill a lot of what you'd told her, and I don't think I need to hear any more. But if you really like him, actually _like_ him, and he likes you too, and you're forcing yourself to stay away from him because you're worried about me, then just stop, alright? Just stop, because you're being stupid."

"Tom —" It's not stupid, Jon wants to protest. It's being a good best friend.

"Shut up again, I'm not finished." Tom taps his fingers against his thighs; he's probably craving a cigarette or two right now. "It's stupid because you can't just use me as your excuse like this, Jon. I'm not crazy about it, no, but what the fuck kind of best friend do you think I am? If it's going to make you happy, then go for it. I don't want you to be miserable just because I had an argument with the guy."

"I'm not miserable," Jon tries to tell him, but Tom steamrolls over it.

"Liar," he snorts, looking at Jon. "Look, do what you want, okay? But do it because it's what you want to do, not because it's what you think would make me happy. I should really not play that big of a role in your love life." He laughs faintly. "Just... whatever, dude. Don't be a moron. I'll see you in a few days."

And with that, he vanishes from the mirror. Tom isn't always big on goodbyes.

/

It takes three days for Jon to mirror William. First he's caught up in going back to his apartment and unpacking and then, well. To be honest, he's sort of hoping something will drop into his lap so that he won't have to — William will mirror him first, or Tom will change his mind and insist that Jon stay as far away from William as possible. Neither of those happen.

Instead, Jon has to reach into the bag of Wondermir himself, blowing the dust at the mirror until it clings to the surface. "William Beckett," he says, and the powder swirls as it sinks into the glass.

The purple flecks coalesce into the image of William, looking puzzledly at the mirror. "Jon?"

Jon takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly, trying to make his heart beat a little more slowly. "Hey," he says, keeping his gaze fixed on William. William looks tired, his skin wan and his eyes half-lidded; Jon's head is still aching, just faintly. "I talked to Tom." Or Tom talked _at_ him, same difference.

William raises his eyebrows, looking alert. "I'm going to assume I was part of what you talked about."

"Yeah." Jon breathes again, focusing on the way it the air feels, moving in and out of his lungs. He feels a little light-headed. "He said I was using him as an excuse."

From what Jon can see, it looks like William is in his living room. He moves backwards slowly, keeping his eyes locked on Jon as he sinks into a chair. "And?"

"I don't think that's all of it, exactly. But I think it's enough." Jon drops down too, sitting on the arm of his sofa. He doesn't know much longer his knees can keep him completely upright. As it is, only his death grip on the arm is keeping him from falling backwards. He's more than a little terrified right now, okay.

"I'm not psychic, Jon."

"I want this," Jon blurts out, and he wants to hit himself as soon as he says it, but that doesn't stop it from being any less true. "I want _you_ , and that kind of freaks me out, because I haven't wanted anybody like this since Cassie."

"Jon, if we have sex again, it's not like we're going to be able to break up," William says, sounding faintly hysterical. His eyes are wide, and Jon thinks he wasn't the only one using an easy excuse because he was scared beyond belief. "You know that, right? It's kind of a forever thing."

Jon shrugs helplessly. "I know. I just... don't want to spend the rest of my life forcing myself to stay away from you. I mean, I don't know about you, but that sounds kind of shitty to me."

"Yeah," William agrees, subdued, his hands lying rigidly flat on his thighs. "Yeah, me too."

"I don't want to do anything you don't want to do," Jon continues, trying to keep himself from going to the mirror and pressing a hand against it to see if he can fall through. "But, if you did. Want this, I mean."

"Jon," William says sternly, "I don't make breakfast for just anybody."

They stare at each other for a long moment, and then Jon laughs loudly, falling backwards onto the sofa as his hands lose their grip on the arm. William dissolves into laughter as well, hiding his mouth behind his hand but utterly failing to keep any of his giggles in.

"Breakfast, seriously?" Jon asks, sitting up and trying to get his breathing under control.

"Hey!" William protests, a smile still playing around the edges of his mouth. "I'm serious. I only bestow my cooking favors when I really care."

"I'm honored," Jon says, not even bothering to hold back his grin. He feels so light, right now, like he's floating again. This — no matter what William says next, it's out there. It's out there and he's made his choice, even if William ends up making a different one.

"You should be," William informs him imperiously, before dropping the act and taking a breath. "I want you to take me to Muggle Chicago."

"What?" Jon crosses his legs on the sofa, resting his elbows on his knees and just looking at William now.

"I think you should take me to Muggle Chicago." William sounds determined now, completely sure of himself and what he wants. "I want you to take me to a record store and show me all your favorite places to take pictures, and then I think we should go to a restaurant and have an actual date. And then I want to kiss you, and not stop until we realise it's getting late and we both should go home."

Jon opens his mouth and then closes it again, momentarily stunned. "I — that sounds doable," he says slowly, trying to figure out where William is going with this.

"And then I want us to take our time, and go out again, and again, and actually feel like we're getting to fall in love properly. I want to not be drunk or dreaming when we have sex. I want — that's what I want." He glances at Jon, a hint of uncertainty sneaking back into his face. "It's your turn."

"I want it to be right," Jon says, feeling almost dizzy. He still doesn't know what he's doing, honestly, but he thinks that might be okay, in the end. "And I really want to kiss you."

William considers this for a moment. "Well, I guess we could start with that, if you felt like coming over here."

"I'm already on my way." Jon disables the connection and leaves his living room behind him, disappearing away to wherever William is.

/

_seven._

"Ready to chill with the Muggles?" Jon asks, slipping into his flip flops and glancing over at William.

"I think I can handle it," William shoots back. "Are you ready to have an actual date tonight?"

The reservations are for seven, at a small restaurant Jon discovered a year or two back. It's a good date restaurant, small with good food, great dessert, and unobtrusive service. More importantly, it's quiet enough that they'll be able to hear each other. Jon hasn't been on a first date in a few years, but he recalls it involving a lot of talking.

It seems a little funny, given the amount of talking they've already done — seven years at school, late-night and early-morning conversations on tour, yesterday when he and William decided (between kisses) that they want to take this almost glacially slow. Number seven is going to happen, but it's going to be on their terms.

"As long as you remember that a gentleman never puts out on the first date."

"You're not a gentleman," William snorts, pulling Jon outside and locking the door with a wave of his wand.

"Hey," Jon protests mildly, smiling. "I'm totally a gentleman." He slides his hand to the small of William's back, his fingers resting against William's skin, and dips him back into a kiss.

It doesn't feel like floating, or flying, or falling. It feels like waking up.


End file.
